WCOOP Event #3 $215 PLO 6-max underway!

For those of you who don't know what Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) is let me tell you! Everything works just like hold'em except you get 4 cards instead of 2. In hold'em you use the 5 cards on the board and the 2 cards in your hand to make your best 5 card hand. On the other hand in PLO you use TWO cards from your hand and THREE from the board to make your best 5 card hand. So if you get dealt JJJJ you don't have four of a kind, all you have is a pair of jacks. Of if you have AAAK and the board is A 2 3 4 5, you don't have 4 aces and you don't have a 5 high straight, your best hand in 3 aces. Also in no limit hold'em you can bet as many chips as you have in your stack, whereas in PLO you can only bet as much as is in the pot already.

We started with 2,738 players each with 5,000 chips. I signed up about 50 minutes late (there is no penalty for doing so, you just miss the first few levels) because I was busy taking care of e-mails, but won a big hand early.

I got dealt 4567 with the 57 of hearts. Hands where all of your cards are in order are strong because they lend themselves to many straight possibilities. Four players just called to me and I made it 300 to go. Only one player called. The flop came down 6 6 8 with two hearts, meaning I had three of a kind, a straight draw, a flush draw, a full house draw and a straight flush draw. The value of the straight and flush draw were diminished by the fact that there was a pair on the board, but it was still a pretty strong flop.

I bet 750 into the 750 chip pot and my opponent called. The turn was the J of clubs putting two clubs out there. I wasn't really sure what to do here, but I decided to check. When my opponent bet 750 into the 2,250 pot I read him for weakness and moved all in for about 3,500. He thought for a second and then called with AK97 with 3 clubs which was a straight draw and a flush draw, but I had a lot of his cards locked out since some of his outs would make me a full house or a flush. In fact only 8 cards (three 10's and 5 clubs) would make him the best hand. The river was another jack and I took down the 9,000 chip pot.

After a few more small ones I'm up to 10,450 with 1,955 players left. The edge of the money is 420th which pays $296 and 1st place is $86,247.